Abarth Italy is celebrating the “Month of Scorpio” during which the company will offer a calendar of events dedicated to Carlo Abarth, the legendary founder born a century ago under this astrological sign (15 November 1908).

The celebration runs from 23rd October to 22nd November, and will involve the Italian Abarth dealer network of 49 outlets.

The event will allow the public to test-drive the Abarth range, discover the history behind the brand, and admire the collection of clothing and accessories.

There’ll be a chance to drive the Grande Punto Abarth with both the popular “Assetto” and “esseesse” kits fitted – to date, more than 600 kits have been sold already.

Grande Punto Abarth esseesse

Other events will follow in the next few weeks. For example, an exhibition will be held in Turin titled “from 0 to 100” that illustrates the life of Carlo Abarth and his legendary adventures through cars, objects and photographs. The exhibition takes place at Torino Esposizioni, Turin, and opens on 16th November.

There will also be a special event on the weekend of 15th – 16th November devoted to the brand new “esseesse” kit for the Abarth 500.

Although there’s still no sign of a list of Abarth merchandise or accessories from Abarth UK, an Adobe Acrobat PDF catalogue of official Abarth merchandise appeared today on the Italian Abarth website.

Fiat could make a special-bodied Abarth Coupe in order to expand the ‘affordable high performance’ credentials of its recently re-established brand.

The company is reportedly delighted with the early reception for its Abarth Punto and 500 variants and believes that a special Abarth model may be feasible. A coupe would be in the spirit of the cars created by the firm’s founder, Carlo Abarth, in the 1960s.

It seems that Abarth UK and the dealer network are being a little slow when it comes to sorting out the accessories range. This has been particularly annoying when it comes to sourcing simple things like carpet mats.

For now, I’m using a set of standard Punto mats (which Westover ripped me off for), but the foot-board in the passenger foot-well means they don’t fit as they should.

After a bit of hunting around, Fiat Forum member ‘magicmole’ uncovered the part number for the genuine Grande Punto Abarth mats:-

Had a lucky break in the weather for the hand-over so managed to drive it home in the sun. However, didn’t have any such luck with the traffic, so spent a good while stuck on the M3 going nowhere – though I can now report that with Sport Boost off, the GPA is extremely docile in stop-start traffic.

With Sport Boost on, it’s much peppier than I remember from the test drive. The Brembos are also much stronger than I remember – I can’t see why anyone would need the Esseesse brake upgrade unless the car was to become a track day regular.

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